Hoo boy — a calculator of fun.
Remember my mentioning Reverse Polish Notation today? Wiki sez…
So, (3 – 2) x 6 becomes:
6 (enter) 3 (enter) 2 – x
RPN is also a configurable option on the groovy freeware Calc98.
And:
Remember when you were thirteen and you and your geeky friends tried to spell obscene words upside-down with a calculator? I sure has hell did it at least. And this guy seems to have never outgrown it. Boobless indeed.
It was once said in the time of homesteaders and sharecroppers that in the hardest of times musicians did the best. Now, I’m no Leadbelly, but I’ve actually tried to support myself solely by music in the past–both times when Europe was dipping into recession. All I can say from the experience is that we all go down together–to paraphrase Billy Joel and also an 80’s Paul Mcartney song with animated frogs as well.
But when prominent musicians go down, critics sharpen up their fickle fangs and thin the herd with ravenous succinctness.
However, when a carnivour or scavenger devours it’s prey, it’s gone, baby. In the newer school of journalism, the fang-ed ones have also learned to chew the cud.
That would be what I refer to as “list journalism”, a phenomenon that always was there yet has come most presently into the public eye front-and-center in the last two or three years. The ten greatest books ever ever. The fifty greatest recorded drumsolos. The thousand coolest things a singer said during a guitar solo. The 12 sexiest holy relics.
That brings me to my point: even my favorite film and music critics, the lads and lasses at the Onion AV Club have fallen yet again prey to this wanker trend. Exibit G: a list of yesterday’s tomorrows–a short list of promising and paradigm-shifting music acts who didn’t shift any paradigm to speak of. Additional cynical information on how the survivors try to regroup and cash in on their long faded fame also available. That last bit is was sours the compassionate into crassness and really pisses me off.
Anyhoo, for any of my students who try to sludge through those critiques yet find them impassible, be consoled. I have one hell of a time making heads or tails through most of the stuff written in the Sax.
This afternoon, ’round two, as I was waiting for the tram out in front of my house, I heard a terrifying loud screech fill the air. I knew the sound and was not too terribly surprised to see two fighter jets overhead. They came in from the north northwest and made a beautiful lazy bank right heading south southwest.
They flew quite low, I would guess less than 200 meters–let’s say 300 to play it safe. Low enough that I could see they had stuff stuck under the wings–either fuel tanks or weaponry. I could see that they were single fuselage, non-swingwing types, but no indication as to whom these two jets belonged.
I’m only mentioning this because in all my years in Dresden I have never ever seen or heard of a warplane flying over this city these days. I wonder who they were, where they were going and why. It better have been for a damn good reason, too. I hope I never see a warplane flying over my city again, and certainly not this city.
A classroom favorite of mine — and though my students act like they hate it, they really love it — the infamous Wordgame of Death, also known ashangman.
At long last English classes are gearing back up at TU-D. Must go in tomorrow to get my lists and stuff before my first class.
Totally cool totally cool!
ear is a site with lots of pictures of super special hearing devices to detect oncoming planes. These photos come from the thirties, or then again maybe not.
I’ve never heard of this technology before but I dreamt of it when I made the Toast of the Century cartoon. So apply a grain of salt if you are not sure. But it’s still so damn cool!
I have got to find on of these contraptions to complete my collection of underground silos and old aircraft carriers!
Well Gee-willikers. I just got an email from a former student from a few years ago. Turns out, he snuck in a digicam and recorded class on the first day. Apparently, this has been going around the internet for some time, so you might have already seen it (blush)…
Gosh, I can’t help but laugh myself! Just to think how much I’ve learned since that day five years ago. One thing is for sure: I’ve come unto my own, and I sure as gosharooty don’t work blue anymore!
You can view that whacky video
here.
Our good friends at the Fortean Times have a nice article about Kaspar Hauser, that creepy lad who wandered onto the scene in Nuremberg in 1828, well dressed and well fed, yet feral, and who sparked many a lost-heir theories only to get himself inexplicably murdered.
See, this is what happens when you don’t pay enough attention to the local news.
Archeologists in Saxony have found what may be the oldest pornographic statue in the world. story
Of course, seeing as it is Saxony, that would be bornograwich. N???
I spent a few hours with Ron and some other superfriends hanging out with a good buddy who just got back from the hospital. He or she had to have an operation to have one of his or her testicles removed after the doctors found a malignant tumor attached to it.